I find it particularly interesting that when the HTML of the site is analyzed it appears that an HTML editor was used to create the entire front page, as well as the blog page.. the tag structures and completeness of the tags (including of some attributes that generally are not included, etc) match completely. No real> funny business going on here... just a prank with the website owner throwing in an additional group of <DIV> elements with different silly sayings.

Additional Commentary (by ??):

I ran a visual traceroute on ilovebees.com, and it led to a place called Rackspace.com. Theres a half dozen missing/unidentified bounces that aren't necessarily abnormal, but do mask the entire path. From what I have gleaned from the main web site, this is definately not a mom and pop thing. This isn't the "sign up now and get a domain and 500megs free" type of place, but a serious hosting location that doesn't really even list prices without contacting them. I have tried to find some correlation between bungie, halo, or anyone else sharing space at this location, however they have led to nothing.

Additional Additional Commentary (by JT):

That's actually interesting that it's hosted by rackspace, which answers the question we forgot to ask, "How did they survive the extra bandwidth and slashdotting?" And now we know. Now we just need to know if they are directly colocating with Rackspace or if they host on someone elses box that colocates with rackspace... Looks like from poking and prodding at their ip (69.20.126.147) and ip addresses around it, that they are colocated on their own. I found this because some shared hosting services use an ip range and have one host per IP and others have multiple hosts on the same ip. The ips on each side of their ip and most in the range are unreachable on port 80 (www). Which means that if they're hosting more than one website, they'd have to be doing it on the same ip addres... which means that if you were to connect to the ip address not by hostname, you wouldn't get their website, you'd get a generic one... which isn't the case. If you connect to the ip address w/o using the host, you still get the same site. This person definitely thought ahead and co-located at rackspace... someone should use nmap and do some TCP fingerprinting to find out more information, as well as a portscan to find out what services are running on this box... perhaps I will if I have time later...

Additional Additional Additional Commentary (by soylent):

According to my contacts at Rackspace, the company footing the bill for Ilovebees.com is Myriad Mobile - They specialize in HIVE campaigns, aka "viral" or "word-of-mouth" ad campaigns. These are the same folks responsible for the ad campaign for Steven Spielberg's A.I.

Additional Commentary (by compnski):

If you notice, someone links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_24 . The events that Dana lists are the 2nd, 7th and 49th links out of 51, so the last is also second from the top. More of that 7x7 = 49 stuff

Spec posted for Sunday July 25 --

A yet undiscovered link that perhaps further indicates a connection with Halo/Bungee. The voice actor for Cortana (Jen Taylor) starred in a movie recently, named Inheritance. The director of this independant film has a post directing people to the films trailer. http://forums.thecpl.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=22;t=000222;p= The link he supplies comes back with a 404 as he places a period at the end of the url, but note the domain of the certificate www.beecaveweb.net. beecaveweb.net has an image displaying the url www.beecave.com, which displays the same image. Both domains are registered to a Michael Braly.

Spec posted for Monday July 26 (dgooding)--

After going to the www.beecaveweb.net site, noticed the single image (masthead.gif) displayed is in the /images/ folder. Additional images are 0305stopline600x.jpg and faceit.jpg. After going to www.beecave.com, even more additional images are found in the /images/ folder, namely: joseph.jpg and roseStainedGlass.jpg and wintercoop.jpg. The "last modified" dates on the images are not current, either.

UPDATE: This is 98% a dead end. I wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.

"But at the same time, parts of me being moved around, emptied out. As if under general anaesthetic, dimly conscious, half-aware as the surgeon cuts off my feet and sews them onto my shoulders. She opens my head with a medical hammer and sand spills out."

"Eight legs (I feel them walking on me) and how many voices-three? Five? Eight? - I am become a most delicate monster indeed."

(added by UserInvicticide:) There is also the Arachne reference, the story was from Ovid's Metamorphoseos. Coupled with Kafka's Metamorphosis.

Arachne hung herself, you know. Take a hint already.

Idle speculation: Do the pictures of Dana look at all like Cortana? It's a stretch...

Corrupted Images with messages in the Binary were used in Orson Scott Card's "Shadow Puppets" as a means of communication. May or may not mean anything. However, the "buggers" in the Shadow novel series were often refered to in a bee like fashion, and the leader was known as a "Queen". - Blaze

Commentary (by Paul G):

Given the new content today, it seems that the queen/spider is somehow trapped on dana's computer. Lots of references to silicon and magnetic media from phase 1 (which jives with our current storage hardware). In phase 2, she talks mockingly about copper, silicon, and a little fiber optic (which jives with our current networking hardware), as well as references to pings, traffic, primitive protocols ("Whoa. Not CP ancestor packets. This is something different. Quick quick quick quick - parse this protocol and find some kind of eyeball out. Sister you just made a mistake because this is my *meat* this is what I do and you are - GOT IT." - maybe she's just figured out TCP/IP?).

The KillerJpg images (maybe taken by TheQueen from a webcam on Dana's comp?) seem to indicate that the queen equates killer = assassin = Dana ("The first thing I remember is her trying to kill me.">). She's frustrated that she can't manipulate her environment ("can't even get to her stupid HOUSE through the stupid BOX: no central thermo controls, no slaved AI, nothing."). Also seems to encounter local anti-virus software ("...Some unbelievably primitive anti-virals, shambling around like dim-witted crocodiles.") a la Norton or Mcaffee.

"Would have laughed if I could have moved..." We know that rampant AI's need planet-sized networks to survive. Currently, the queen seems extremely cramped.

"Someday I am going to win free of this Babbage Machine..."

"If I could just get off this freaking ABACUS and into a bigger system..."

"And to do that, first thing is to GET OUT OF THIS BOX.

Trying hard. So frustrating, there's pings coming in, streaming out, and I used to be good at this, I can feel it. Always been good at"

A little interesting connection that I haven't seen mentioned, though I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with it: Dana's email (danatwing@gmail.com) involves a reference to Larry Niven. The most obvious connection i can think of here is Niven's most famous work, Ringworld. The concept of the actual physical structure of Halo are, surely, based off of Niven's idea, though on a smaller scale.

Another connection that I've made but not seen (and might have just overlooked), is the significance of China in the countdowntochina.js script. Many if not most CDs are made in Taiwan (from my desk alone i can see two CD-R spindles with 'made in Taiwan' on them). Taiwan is, technically, part of China. Perhaps a 'countdown to china' is a countdown to when the gold master ships off to be printed.

Actually, the reference to China in the countdown was because Dana was supposed to be making a trip to China. She mentioned that the countdown script was "hijacked" for this other purpose.

With a scheduled release date of November 9, there is no way Halo 2 will be GM in August. I'll eat my hat if it is. Those expecting that this is all about a demo release or an early release for Halo 2 are going to be sorely disappointed.

"When her Queen died, the Widow awoke. She was driven by a single need, which was to return her Queen to splendor. To carry out her task, the Widow came with three tools: an empty lantern, a staff made of bone, and a sharp knife. The Sleeping Princess lay in a chamber of the dungeon in a coffin of glass where the Widow could not hear her breathing."

If you have read "Speaker for the Dead" <some spoilers>, you may notice Ender writing 'The Hive Queen and the Hegemon'... whereas Ender has eliminated the alien race known as the Buggers. WHen Ender realizes the Buggers were not at all bad, he found a cocoon - the cocoon of the Bugger Queen (The Queen can telepathically speak to Ender, she is cramped in her cocoon)...Ender then decides he will re-awaken the Hive Queen to splendor... later on in the book, Ender must leave his sister, leaving him all alone, perhaps widow-like. Maybe this has a connection to the book or the Ender Wiggin series. -Sangokyu

Commentary (by darkphan):<BR>

Don't know if this was mentioned anywhere here, but August 24th is 77 days away from November 9th.

Commentary (by Wes):

Well with the IP given above I tracked it to San Antonio with this info:

Well i think this does have something to do with a realease of a demo. I have come to this because i received my new xbox magazine today and there was an ad for the next issue in which it stated that it would have all the info for Halo 2, Doom 3, Etc. Geuss what the issue comes out august 24 the same day the countdown ends. My speculation is that the demo will be included on that very issue's demo disk.

Commentary (by Frogwart)

OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) just released their September issue. It arrived in subscriber homes the week of July 31st. The "next issue" ad is actually an ad for a "Special issue" which details all the Holiday game releases that are coming this year. It IS due on retail newsstands August 24th, but it (being a special issue) won't be sent to subscribers. It's akin to their annual Xbox Tips & Cheats issue. If you want it as a subscriber, you'll have to request they send you one or buy it at a store. Also, special issues usually don't include demo discs.

Has anyone noticed that in Dana's blog she makes mention that she is getting no sleep, then makes reference to the timestamp: 6:07am. That's when the time counter ends on August 24th, 6:07am. Has something to do with something? --UserIraqiPete 23:04, 1 Aug 2004 (PDT)

Consideration of innocent bystander

This is pure spec, but it is my belief that the bystander is the bee graphic on the left side of the page. I believe the green text was put there to draw attention to that graphic and therefore indirectly the dmg pages. This probably is a stupid comment, but it's almost midnight EDT and I'm tired. Anybody else please post your ideas on the innocent bystander. Also if their is a better place for this feel free to move it.

I was in the forums at xbox-scene.com, and noticed this in one of the threads (posted by jesusphreak). It has to do with the Hong Kong bank in China, and how stragely familiar it looks to a building apparently under attack in a poster for Halo 2. Check out the pictures of the actual bank and then the building in the poster and see what you think: Hong Kong Bank and Halo 2 Poster

very nice find... I wonder if Dana has anything to do with that bank, or if it's mentioned anywhere specifically. It may still be a coincidence, since China could easily be one of the places on earth that's being attacked (obviously), and just that Dana going to China may not have any connection. Even so, it's an eerie connection... but a very good rendered model in the poster I'd say :) -UserThebruce

Also interesting is that the only all Asia air pass with flights from SanFran to Beijing I could find is by Cathay Pacific. It also turns out that Hong Kong is one of the destinations as well as the HQ of Cathay Pacific --UserJegger 08:23, 4 Aug 2004 (PDT)

Mabye this is of assistance. The post he is talking about is here. this post refers to one here which in turn talks about an HBO news item here. Hope this helps. I would, however, like to point out that that poster was at E3 and it was noticed a month (exactly i bilive) before this whole game Rabit-holed.